Infants prefer to imitate a reliable person

Research has shown that preschoolers prefer to learn from individuals who are a reliable source of information. The current study examined whether the past reliability of a person's emotional signals influences infants’ willingness to imitate that person. An emotional referencing task was first administered to infants in order to demonstrate the experimenter's credibility or lack thereof. Next, infants in both conditions watched as the same experimenter turned on a touch light using her forehead. Infants were then given the opportunity to reproduce this novel action. As expected, infants in the unreliable condition developed the expectation that the person's emotional cues were misleading. Thus, these infants were subsequently more likely to use their hands than their foreheads when attempting to turn on the light. In contrast, infants in the reliable group were more likely to imitate the experimenter's action using their foreheads. These results suggest that the reliability of the model influences infants’ imitation.     

Intergroup perception as a compromise between in-group bias and fair-mindedness

Previously, perceived competence of and attraction toward targets categorized by race showed in-group bias and no bias, respectively. Consequently, previous investigators regarded intergroup perception as a compromise between the norms of in-group bias and fair-mindedness. An alternative hypothesis for such findings is that attraction is not as relevant a dimension for intergroup discrimination as is competence. To test contrasting predictions of these hypotheses, the present authors asked participants from the majority and minority groups in Singapore (ns = 320) to evaluate either competence of or attraction toward one of the five targets. Consistent with the hypothesis that intergroup perception is a compromise, both dimensions yielded a uniform but weak in-group bias. The participants' equating of the in-group with one out-group further illustrated fair-mindedness. The authors discussed implications of the findings.     

Chaplaincy research: a case study

The authors report the pragmatic elements of conducting an empirical chaplaincy research project. The article offers the step-by-step process of implementing, coordinating, and completing a sound quantitative research project. The authors offer a definitive answer to the question, "Can a staff chaplain integrate providing pastoral care and doing a quantitative research project as principle investigator"?     

Training behavioral technicians to implement naturalistic behavioral interventions using behavioral skills training

Training behavioral technicians mainly focuses on teaching accurate implementation of structured behavioral intervention programs. Often behavioral technicians are unable to adequately promote their clients' learning in less structured environments, which can limit opportunities for generalization of the clients' skills to the natural environment. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using behavioral skills training to coach behavioral technicians on the implementation of naturalistic behavioral interventions. Naturalistic behavioral interventions take advantage of naturally occurring situations to teach new skills and practice mastered skills in natural settings, thus promoting generalization across environments and in the presence of natural contingencies. Five behavioral technicians were trained to implement a novel protocol based on play therapy. Specifically, they were coached to engage in well‐defined positive behaviors during their interactions with clients (e.g., labeled praise). All participants reached mastery criteria, maintained skills at follow‐up, and demonstrated generalization of skills with novel clients.     

Incorporating family therapy into asthma group intervention: a randomized waitlist-controlled trial

Asthma psychoeducational programs have been found to be effective in terms of symptom-related outcome. They are mostly illness-focused, and pay minimal attention to systemic/familial factors. This study evaluated a novel asthma psychoeducation program that adopted a parallel group design and incorporated family therapy. A randomized waitlist-controlled crossover clinical trial design was adopted. Children with stable asthma and their parents were recruited from a pediatric chest clinic. Outcome measures included, for the patients: exhaled nitric oxide (eNO), spirometry, and adjustment to asthma; and for the parents: perceived efficacy in asthma management, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale anxiety subscale, Body Mind Spirit Well-being Inventory emotion subscale, and Short Form 12 health-related quality of life scale. Forty-six patients participated in the study. Attrition rates were 13.0% and 26.0% for the active and control groups, respectively. Repeated-measures ANOVA revealed a significant decrease in airway inflammation, as indicated by eNO levels, and an increase in patient's adjustment to asthma and parents' perceived efficacy in asthma management. Serial trend analysis revealed that most psychosocial measures continued to progress steadily after intervention. Significant improvements in both symptom-related measures and mental health and relationship measures were observed. The findings supported the value of incorporating family therapy into asthma psychoeducation programs.     

The effects of response effort on safe performance by therapists at an autism treatment facility

The effects of response effort on safe behaviors (i.e., glove wearing, hand sanitizing, and electrical outlet replacement) exhibited by therapists at an autism treatment center were examined. Participants were exposed to 2 or 3 levels of effort (i.e., high, medium, low) for each dependent variable. Results showed increased safe performance during the low-effort conditions relative to other conditions across all dependent variables for all participants.     

Cross-language negative priming remains intact,while positive priming disappears: evidence for two sources of selective inhibition

In the current experiments, within- and between-language primed lexical decision tasks with Twi-English bilinguals were used. The aim was to explore the priming effects produced by attended and ignored words, in an effort to draw theoretical and empirical parallels and differences between the mechanisms of excitation and inhibition and to isolate the different circumstances in which these mechanisms operate in bilingual language processing. In the within-language (Twi) experiment, facilitatory (positive) priming resulted when a prime word and subsequent probe target word were identical, whereas delayed decisions to probe targets (negative priming) ensued when the ignored prime word was conceptually identical to the subsequent probe target word. In contrast, while the between-language (Twi-English) experiments replicated the ignored repetition negative priming effect, no evidence of positive priming was observed. These between-language findings undermine episodic retrieval models of selective attention that discount inhibitory processes in negative priming paradigms. Instead, our findings substantiate inhibition-based accounts by showing that there are two sources of inhibition operating at the local word and global language levels of abstraction. The findings also support bilingual language representations in which the words of the two languages are integrated.     

A Preliminary Examination of a Vocal Generalized Conditioned Reinforcer

Generalized conditioned reinforcers (GCRs) in the form of tokens are commonly used in behavioral treatment. However, it is possible for non‐tangible consequences to also function as GCRs. For example, a vocal stimulus (e.g., good job) associated with completion of a work task, access to preferred actives, and peer interaction could function as a GCR. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of pairing a vocal stimulus with multiple edible reinforcers on the Frequency math problem completion. The results suggest that a vocal statement paired with an array of four back‐up reinforcer functioned as a GCR for completing math problems for two typically developing children identified as having minor deficits in math skills. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.